


Seaworthy

by ariel2me



Series: House Seaworth [12]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2017-08-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 11:02:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3117758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of House Seaworth drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

> _“You could bring him no hope?” “Only the false sort, and I’d not do that,” Davos said. “He had the truth from me.” […]No, Cressen thought, a man like that would give no false hope, nor soften a hard truth. (A Clash of Kings)_

**The first time Davos told Stannis a hard truth.**

 “Did you steal those onions, pirate?”

“I am a smuggler, not a pirate.”

“Smuggler, pirate. Lawbreakers all,” scoffed the armored skeleton masquerading as a proud young lord.

His armor was too big for him. Once it might have fit, before he was skins and bones robbed of flesh. The men with him fared no better.

Death-heads on sticks, Davos thought.

They came on foot. Unhorsed, unmoored, Storm’s End skeletal army of skeletons.  

They ate all the horses, Davos grasped.

 _How long until they start eating the flesh of the dead,_ he wondered?  _How long until they start eating the living?_

“Smugglers move the goods. We do not steal the goods, and we do not seize or plunder,” Davos said.  _Nor do we ask too many questions about the origin of those goods, if we know what’s good for us,_ the Blind Bastard had warned Davos, on his first voyage serving aboard the Cobblecat.  

“A distinction without a difference,” the skeleton snapped.    

 _You are a fool, boy_ , the Blind Bastard mocked Davos.  _Have you forgotten everything I taught you?_

_I remember. I remember everything, captain. A clever smuggler must never overreach, you said, and he must never draw undue attention to himself. But you are dead, captain. I saw your head rolling across the deck of Cobblecat._

The Black Brother who executed Roro Uhoris had been grossly negligent with his sword-sharpening chore, not to mention highly incompetent in his sword-wielding skill. It took five swings – no, you could not call that butchery ‘ _swinging a sword’_  – five  _hacks_  of that blunt instrument to take off the captain’s head.  

The captain’s skull grinned at Davos.  _Why do you think I lost my head, boy, if not for overreaching? I should have left off trading with the wildlings, no matter the profit. And you should never have come here. Your head will roll too, on these shores._  

“Well?” The skull asking the question was definitely, defiantly,  _not_  grinning.

“Only a starving man begs bread from a beggar, my lord,” Davos said, reciting his wife’s words like a prayer to the gods.  _Forgive me, Marya. I never meant to die on these shores_.   

The eyes bulged. The jaws were working furiously. “Do you mean to mock me, pirate?!”

“I am not a pirate. I am –“ Davos halted. What was the point? This proud young lord was not likely to appreciate the finer distinction between different kinds of lawbreakers. Better to hit him with the blunt truth, once and for all. “Your people are starving, my lord. Your pride will not feed them. But this smuggler could.”

The jaws snapped shut. The skeleton was grinding his teeth. When he finally spoke, his words came out hissed through thin lips and clenched teeth. “My pride has naught to do with it,  _lawbreaker_. If you stole those onions –“

“Onions, and salt fish too. I bring salt fish with me as well. And I did not steal them, my lord. I bought them with my own gold.”

 _Think of it as an investment_ , he had told Marya. He had been thinking of a horde of hungry people with a grateful lord, back then; not starving death-heads on sticks with a stone-stubborn lord.    

“The gold you acquired through your smuggling activities. Through your lawbreaking,” the stubborn lord persisted.

“Will the law feed your people?”  _Will the law feed you, my lord? How long until you are a grinning skull yourself, paraded next to my captain?_ “The realm is at war.”

“ _The realm is at war_ , pronounced the lawbreaker, as if this is news to us, as if the people of Storm’s End have been living it up with feasts and tourneys for the past year. I _know_  we are at war! That is not an excuse to flout the law, to disregard all rules, to make things infinitely worse.”    

“So punish me for the smuggling,” Davos remarked. He would be long gone by then. No one knew how to sail away under the cover of darkness like Davos the smuggler. “But do not let the food go to waste, my lord, not when your people are sorely in need of it.”

“And then reward you for the food you bring us, I suppose?” The skeleton barked.

Davos squinted. Was this a trick? A trick to keep him here waiting for a reward that would never come, only to blindside him with a sword to his head instead?

A boy ran towards them. “Stannis,” the boy shouted, another death-head on stick, this one only as tall as Matthos.   

“Take the onions and the salt fish, my lord. So your people will live. The law will never die, as long as there are men living still to uphold it.”


	2. Chapter 2

> _“A lord can choose more than one badge,” Davos said. Dale smiled. “A black ship and an onion, Father? (A Clash of Kings)_

**_Davos choosing the black-ship-and-onion sigil for his newfound House._ **

“Your stag … has it always been crowned, my lord?”

Stannis stared at Davos as if he had suddenly started spouting antlers from his head. “My  _stag_ , ser?”

“The Baratheon sigil,” Davos clarified. “I wondered if the crown is a new addition, now that your brother is king.” That  _would_  be clever. Clever  _and_  sly, Davos thought, something his old friend Salla would have found very amusing.

But Stannis replied in the negative. “No. It was ever thus, ser, from the day Aegon the Conqueror made Orys Baratheon Lord of Storm’s End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.”

“Did he not mind, King Aegon, that Lord Orys chose a sigil with the sign of kingship?”

Eyes narrowed with suspicion, Stannis said, “Why do you ask, ser? Do you intend to choose a crowned sigil for your own House?”

“No, certainly not, my lord,” Davos hastily replied. “I would never presume to –“

But now Stannis was taking offense at the word ‘ _presume_ ,’ and Davos was reminded yet again how prickly this young lord was.

“Orys Baratheon was not  _presuming_ , ser. He was honoring the fallen Storm King Argilac Durrandon, who he defeated in battle, by adopting the sigil and the words of House Durrandon,“ Stannis snapped. “But no doubt Orys also found it very useful and convenient for his purpose, taking on the mantle of the Storm Kings to consolidate his hold on the Stormlands,” he added, dryly.

Davos smiled. There was no fooling Stannis, even when it came to his ancestor, the founder of his own House. 

 _The founder of his House_. That was  _him_  too, now, Davos realized with a jolt. Davos of Flea Bottom, the founder of House Seaworth.

The little boy who used to beg for bread in the slums of King’s Landing, now -

Oh it was  _madness_ , madness and hubris to take great pride in that. The higher the rise, the swifter the fall. How often had Davos heard that saying, and how often had he found it to be true.      

But then, Davos never expected any maester to write about the humble beginnings of House Seaworth, or any singer to sing songs about Davos Seaworth the way they did about Orys Baratheon. It was not the approbation of the world that he yearned for.

His sons would never have to beg for bread. They would never have to beg for anything.      

Marya would not have to spend another day worrying if her husband was going to lose his head or be sent to the Wall for his lawbreaking.

It had been easy, deciding on Seaworth. The sea had been his livelihood for these many years, since he had been a boy old enough to pester Roro Uhoris into giving him a job aboard the Cobblecat. The sea brought him to Storm’s End and to Stannis, to losing his finger joints and gaining a knighthood, a keep and a piece of land.  

A badge, though, now that was another matter altogether.

A stag had vied with a dragon for the throne, and the dragon had been vanquished. “Must it always depict an animal?” Davos had asked Maester Cressen. The maester of Storm’s End had been the first in the castle – and even now remained the very few – to extend a warm welcoming hand to Davos. The highborns, Davos mused, did not like being beholden to lowborns, and having to feel gratitude for Davos’ onions and salt fish only stoked their resentment further. And that was  _before_ Stannis had made him  a knight and rewarded him with choice land in Cape Wrath.   

“No, not at all,” Cressen replied. “You may choose anything you consider suitable, Ser Davos.”

Ser Davos. It felt strange still, to hear himself being addressed thus. Not in his wildest dream had he ever dreamed of it, aspired to that. Now though, now …

_Ser Dale. Ser Allard. Ser Maric. Ser Matthos._

A knighthood was not hereditary like the land Stannis had granted House Seaworth, true, but in time, in time perhaps his sons would -

“The vista of the sea, perhaps, for your sigil, to match the name Seaworth?” Cressen gently suggested.

“That is much too grand for a humble knight like myself, maester.” As if Davos Seawoth had delusions of grandeur for his fledgling House. “Lord Stannis would not find that agreeable, I suspect.”

“You came to save us from almost certain death from the sea, in your black ship,” Cressen said. “He would not begrudge you that, I am sure.”

Davos was not so certain.  

 _Black ship_ , the maester had said.  

Davos tried to see it. His sigil. A tall, black ship, battling the wind, braving the sea. No, he balked immediately, that was too affected, too full of pride. Just the ship, then. A plain black ship on plain background, that would be fitting.

A voice interrupted. “How fares the  _onion_  knight? Or is it the knight of fish and onion?” There were sniggers all around, and whispers of ‘ _upjumped smuggler_ ’ and Davos Shorthand.

Davos smiled. “The Onion Knight is very well, ser. Lord Stannis did me a great favor when he shortened my fingers.”   

“How so?”

“That makes four less fingernails to clean,” Davos replied. He laughed, but no one else did.

An onion, on the sail. Davos closed his eyes. He saw it clearly now. Those men might mock him for the onions, but those onions saved their lives, fed their starving wives and children. They could mock him as the knight stinking of onion all they wished, but Davos would wear it with pride, that moniker - the Onion Knight.

He would not be ashamed of his humble beginning. His children, and his children’s children, and the generations of Seaworths after that; they would all remember how House Seaworth first came to be, with sacks of onions brought by a lowly smuggler sailing in a little black ship to a castle full of the hungry and the starved.


	3. Chapter 3

> _I was a better smuggler than a knight, he had written to his wife, a better knight than a King’s Hand, a better King’s Hand than a husband. I am so sorry. Marya, I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you. (A Dance with Dragons)_

**Marya Remembers**

_His last letter_. Only the third letter written by her husband’s own hand she had ever received.

Marya remembered the first letter bearing Davos’ own writing. Which stranger wrote this, she wondered at first? Not Matthos, whose hand used to grapple with the quill setting down his father’s words on the parchment to be sent to Cape Wrath. Not Matthos, who had been his father’s second on  _Black Betha_ , who had been his father’s scribe and reader, who was lost when Davos was found, who did not survive Blackwater when his father did.

She knew  _his_  hand; Matthos’ writing, the whorl and loop of his letters, the careful way he arranged his words so the spacing between each was always consistent, pleasing to the eyes, and more importantly, easy to read for a woman who had learned to read and write late in life.    

 _Dearest Mother, King Stannis has made Father Lord of the Rainwood, Admiral of the Narrow Sea and Hand of the King,_ Devan had written. He was  _safe_. Devan was safe, despite being at Blackwater like his brothers were. The gods had taken pity on them in this one instance.  

 _Maester Pylos is teaching me to read and write_ , Davos wrote, in that first letter written by his own hand.

_Did you learn to read and write for him, husband? For your king? For Stannis?_

_Forgive me, Marya. Our boys, our poor sons. I led them to their death_ , Davos had written.

_No! Your king did. Stannis did. Not their father; not the man who whispered soothing words in their ears when they were lusty babes crying their lungs out; not the man who slept not a wink when they were ill, not the man who changed his whole life for their sake, for the sake of their future; not the father who would have gladly given his own life to save theirs._

She remembered the second letter written by his own hand, the one he wrote just before Stannis’ fleet departed for the Wall.

_Forgive me, Marya. King Stannis has need of his onion knight still. My debt to him is not yet paid._

Not even with the blood of their four sons? When would it  _ever_  be paid?

_Our debt, husband, not just yours. You are not the only one who has been paying, who is paying still, who will continue to pay for gods know how long._

And now, this third letter written by his own hand.

His last letter.

_I am so sorry. Marya, I have loved you. Please forgive the wrongs I did you._

She had loved him. Oh the gods knew how she had loved her husband! She loved him still, despite everything, despite their dead sons, despite his king.   

 _I forgive you!_  She wanted to scream.  _I will forgive you anything, anything at all, if you promise to return, if only you are not dead, if only this was a lie._

_Please gods -_

But the gods were silent, as was her husband, and the Mother’s mercy seemed a long way away.  


	4. Chapter 4

**For the prompt: Davos/Marya, first sentence – “Marya’s father wanted her to marry a carpenter, not a smuggler.”**

Marya’s father wanted her to marry a carpenter, not a smuggler. Someone from his own trade, a _stable_ trade, if not a lucrative one. “None of my children has ever starved, or ever had to beg bread from strangers,” he said. The mighty lords and ladies, those highborns with their vast lands and mighty castles might look down on the lowborns as all of the same sorry ilk, but Allard the carpenter was proud of his trade, inherited from his father and his father’s father before that. His children had never roamed the streets of Flea Bottom dirty and unkempt; begging, stealing, conning or conniving.

“It is not Davos’ fault he was born an orphan, Father.”

“No, it’s not. And I might even pity him for it. But not enough to gamble my daughter’s future.”

They had planned to elope, Davos and Marya, had even found a septon half-drunk with ale and sorrow who was willing to wed them in secret. The septon’s eyes travelled to Marya’s belly, giving it a knowing look.

“I am not with child!” Marya said indignantly.

 “Oh I’m sure you’re not _, m’lady_ ,” the septon said, with a little mocking bow to go along with the mocking m’lady.

That was the last straw. Marya burst into tears. She had been the one who insisted they had to elope, that there was no other choice, if they wished to be together. There was another young man, a dangerous young man, her father’s apprentice, eager to please, even more eager for advancement, eager to worm his way into her father’s good graces through her. He tried to sweet-talk her into marriage, and then spied on her when he saw that her affection was already engaged elsewhere.

Her father was _furious_ , when he was told her secret by this shameless spy. “A smuggler? Not while I live and breathe.”

“Davos will not be a smuggler forever. He’ll have his own ship one day, to sail and trade legitimately. I have faith in him,” Marya insisted.

Her father scoffed.  

 “Marya deserves better. She is a very precious jewel,” the apprentice said, with an ingratiating smile.

A precious jewel to be entrusted to this particular apprentice, her father declared. Marya did not wait another day. She went to the dock to find Davos. She had been fearless, then; carried forward by indignation as much as love. But her heart sank now, thinking of her mother’s tears. Thinking of her mother’s shame, when the news broke to their relatives and neighbors. She thought of her father’s shame, too; her father who had pride in his work and pride in his children.

That would be the obvious assumption – that Davos and Marya had eloped because she was with child.

“We’ll go to your father together,” Davos said, gently wiping her tears with his palm. “We’ll convince him. And your mother too.”

In the end, nobody needed to do any convincing. When she returned home with Davos by her side, her father refused to believe anything other than the obvious assumption. Now, instead of forbidding the smuggler to wed his daughter, he threatened Davos with violence if he refused to marry Marya. “Who else would have her? I am not so rich to bribe a man to marry the spoils of another.”

“I will be a good husband to your daughter,” Davos promised.

Her father swore. “What is a smuggler’s promise worth? Less than _nothing_ , I’d wager.” He turned to his daughter. “You chose this. Remember that.”

“I won’t regret it, Father.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Of dragons and farewells – Devan Seaworth, Stannis Seaworth and Steffon Seaworth**

_One day, he told himself. One day when the war is done and King Stannis sits the Iron Throne and has no more need of onion knights. I’ll take Devan with me. Steff and Stanny too if they’re old enough. We’ll see these dragons and all the wonders of the world. (A Dance with Dragons)_

________________

“Are there really dragons there?” Steff asked, eyes wide with wonder and amazement.

“Not real dragons,” Stanny replied before Devan could. “It’s called Dragonstone, not Dragonland. And all the dragons are dead, I told you that already, many, many times.”

“There are stone carvings of dragons all over the island. The castle itself is shaped like a dragon, that’s what Father said,” Devan told his two younger brothers.

“So it’s like you’re living inside a dragon. What if your bedchamber is in the dragon’s mouth? With teeth and tongue and gross slime and who knows what else,“ Steff said, looking thrilled and disgusted in equal measure.

Devan smiled. “I don’t think the carvers went into that much detail. The castle may look like a dragon from the outside, but I think the inside is just the same like any other castle.”

“Not the same,” Stanny disagreed. “Dragonstone has … _that_ man. The scary man.”

“What man? What scary man? Are you going to a place with a scary man, Devan? Why do you have to go there?” Steff asked, looked scared.

“No one,” Devan replied, throwing Stanny a sharp glance. “Stanny is talking nonsense. There is nothing for you to worry about.”

Steff stomped his feet. “It’s not fair! You two are always keeping secrets from me, whispering about things I’m not supposed to know. Just because I’m the youngest -”

“Well, you _are_ the youngest,” Stanny interrupted.

“When Devan is gone, you will _have_ to tell me _all_ the secrets, Stanny. There is no one else left,” Steff replied, triumphant.

“The Others take your secrets,” Stanny exclaimed with anger.

“You’re not supposed to swear. Mother said so,” Steff said doggedly.

Devan got between his brothers. “Are you so eager to have me gone?” He asked Steff, his hands smoothing the boy’s unruly hair.

Steff frowned. “No, I’m not. You know I’m not. I don’t want you to leave at all. But Mother said we must not cry because that will make you sad. I don’t want to make you sad, Devan.”

Steff looked like he was about to cry anyway, tears pooling in his brown eyes.

“I’ll tell you a secret, if you promise not to cry,” Stanny told his little brother. He whispered something into Steff’s ear. The boy exclaimed, “Oh!”

“What did Stanny tell you?” Devan asked.

“He said you’re going to be a squire to a very special lord, a lord with dragon blood in him. Is that true, Devan?”

Devan nodded. “Lord Stannis’ grandmother was a Targaryen. She is dead now, but she was the daughter of a Targaryen king.”

“Did she ride a dragon? Was it a girl dragon or a boy dragon? What did she feed her dragon?” Steff asked eagerly. He was mad for any story about dragons and their riders.

“She didn’t have a dragon. All the dragons were long dead by the time she was born,” Devan replied.

“But Lord Stannis must know _lots_ and _lots_ of stories about dragons. You must tell me all about it when you come home,” Steff said.

“Devan is not going to Dragonstone to play story time with Lord Stannis,” Stanny scoffed. “Being a squire is hard work. He doesn’t have time for your silliness.”  

“I know that! I’m not a baby,” Steff complained. Stanny walked away in a huff. “Stanny is so mean to me sometimes. When you’re not here, he’s going to be even _more_ horrible,” Steff confided to Devan.

“He doesn’t mean to be mean to you, Steff. You know how you usually cry when you’re sad? Well, Stanny doesn’t cry, he gets cranky instead,” Devan replied.

“Is Stanny sad because you’re leaving?”

Devan nodded.

“Are you sad too, Devan?”

Devan gathered his little brother into his embrace, to hide the tears in his eyes.


	6. Chapter 6

**Stannis** ** & Stannis**

Stannis Seaworth meeting his namesake Stannis Baratheon for the first time.

\-----------------------------

“You are called Stanny.”

His hands and feet still trembling, the boy nodded slowly. “I am, my lord.”

“It is a boy’s name, Stanny.”

“I am a boy, my lord,” Stanny replied quickly, before the meaningful look from Devan could warn him that it was not the right thing to say.

“Yes, I can see quite clearly that you are a boy.”

“Please forgive my brother, Lord Stannis. He does not mean to sound insolent,” Devan interjected, looking worried.

“He can speak for himself, I’m sure. Why are you not called Stannis, when that is your real name?”

“I will be, my lord, when I am older. My mother says Stanny is good enough for now.”

 _A good name for a good boy_ , Mother had said.

“And is your brother Steffon called Steffy?” Lord Stannis was asking.

“Not Steffy. He is called Steff.”

“Why is that? If you are to be called Stanny, then by right your brother should be called Steffy. Or if your family wishes to call him Steff, then you should be Stan, not Stanny. Why the irregularity and the inconsistency in the names you are called, when you are brothers?”

Stanny turned to look at Devan for help, but Devan looked as perplexed as Stanny was feeling. A comforting squeeze of his hand was the only help Devan managed to give his little brother.

“I … I’m not sure, my lord. You would have to ask my father and mother,” Stanny replied. After a moment’s pause, he braved himself to ask the question that had been consuming his interest and curiosity since the day he was told that he was named in honor of Lord Stannis Baratheon. “Were you … were you called Stanny as a boy, my lord? Or Stan?”

Devan moved even closer towards his brother, tightening his hold on Stanny’s hand, as if he was expecting Lord Stannis to erupt in anger.

 _Was that the wrong thing to ask?_ Stanny was more afraid for Devan than for himself. Father would take him home to Mother and Steff where it’s warm and safe when the visit was over , but Devan had to stay here with Lord Stannis, and what if he took out his anger on Devan? What if Devan was punished for Stanny’s mistake?

_I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make Lord Stannis angry!_

To the Seaworth brothers’ surprise, Lord Stannis’ stern and forbidding expression actually softened into something almost resembling amusement. “Well, well, I see that your little brother is bolder than you are, Devan. Devan has been my squire almost half a year, and he has never asked me that question.” Here Lord Stannis’ expression turned grim again. “Boldness can so quickly turn into rashness and recklessness, however, if you do not watch yourself. My brothers can tell you a thing or two about that. Caution is a great and worthy virtue, often overlooked and underappreciated, unfortunately. Mind that you remember that, Stannis Seaworth.”

Stanny nodded quickly. “Yes, my lord. I will remember that.”

“I was never called Stanny, or Stan. I was always Stannis, from the day I was born. My lady mother did once consider calling me –“ Lord Stannis abruptly broke off his recollection at this point. “Never mind that. This is your first time coming to court, Devan told me.”

“Yes, my lord,” Stanny replied eagerly. “Father said I am old enough to come. I had my seventh nameday last month. Steff wanted to come too. We both so wanted to visit Devan, but Mother said Steff is too young to go to King’s Landing.”

“How old is your brother Steffon?”

“He is four, my lord.”

“I was four the first time my father took me to court. I was so little my brother Robert had to hold my hand the whole time. Perhaps your mother was wise not to let your little brother come.”

“Did you … did you see the king on the throne, when you came to court the first time?” Stanny asked.

“No, we did not. We thought we did, but it was not actually the king we saw sitting on the throne. It was the Hand. And you will not be seeing the king on your visit either. King Robert,” Stannis paused, gritting his teeth, looking displeased,“has gone hunting. _Again_.”

“We have taken too much of your time, my lord,”Devan said quickly, sensing that Stannis’ temper was rising.

“I have need of your father’s service for the day. Your brother Devan will have to be the one to show you around,” Stannis told the boy named in his honor.

“Yes, my lord.”

“The castle is a big and confusing place, especially if you have never been here before. You are a brave boy, I’m sure, as all Ser Davos’ sons must be, but perhaps it is best to hold on tightly to your brother’s hand for today. This is your first time coming to court after all.”


	7. Chapter 7

“When I'm older,” Stanny declared, “I'm going to be Lord Stannis' squire too, just like Devan.”

Steff laughed. “You can't! Then there will be _two_ Stanny in King's Landing.”

Devan smiled. “I don't think Lord Stannis has ever been called Stanny.”

“Maybe his mother called him Stanny. Or his father,” Stanny speculated. “He must have been a boy once, just like me. He wasn't born all ... _Lord Stannis_ -like.”

Devan tried to imagine Lord Stannis as a boy, apple-cheeked and with a front tooth missing, like Stanny. His eyes would be blue, of course, not dark brown like Stanny's, and his hair would be darker than Stanny's. He would be laughing and smiling, playing and horsing around with his brothers, like Stanny. No, _brother_ , not brothers, since his younger brother Renly would not be born until Lord Stannis was three-and-ten. Somehow, the picture did not quite come together in Devan's imagination; Lord Stannis and King Robert playing monsters-and-maidens and come-into-my-castle, or chasing each other in the courtyard until they ran out of breath, or stuffing their faces with apples and peaches like Devan, Stanny and Steff had done that very morning.

But perhaps Lord Stannis and King Robert were closer when they were boys. Perhaps they did not always glare at each other with matching fury in their eyes and icy coldness in their voices. Did they become more distant after King Robert was sent to the Eyrie to foster with Lord Arryn, while Lord Stannis stayed home at Storm's End?

And, Devan worried, would the same fate inflict him and his younger brothers, now that he was spending most of his time in King's Landing squiring for Lord Stannis, away from Stanny and Steff?

“Father would know,” Stanny said. “We should ask Father if Lord Stannis was ever called Stanny.”

“I'm _bored_ ,” Steff complained. “Can we stop talking about Lord Stanny now?”

“ _Which_ Lord Stanny? Do you mean me?” Stanny teased.


	8. Chapter 8

Her husband left home with a ship full of onions and salt fish, and came home with a knighthood and a piece of land in Cape Wrath. “Our sons will never have to risk their lives flouting the law like I did,” he told her, relieved.

He told their sons about the new home they would soon move to, about the new life they would soon embark on, about the new future they would be able to avail themselves of. She smiled and laughed alongside her boys, but her husband did not miss the shadow behind her smiles, the crack underneath her apparent joy.

“I want to know about the other things too,” she whispered to him softly, when he stroked her face at night and kissed her forehead.

 So he told her about the piercing cries of hungry children, skeletal men trying to move in armors that looked far too big and too heavy on them, horses’ bones, rats’ bones, and the young lord with fleshless face and fleshless limbs who still looked defiant against all the odds. He told her about the crackling sound when cleaver met bones. He told her about the pain that no maester’s potion could alleviate.

She stitched the pouch herself, thread by laborious thread, by the flickering light of the candle. He had been carrying the bones in a sack he held in his hand always. The other hand. The one not missing four fingers. “To remind me of Lord Stannis’ justice,” her husband had said when asked why he had not thrown the bones away.

When she gave the leather pouch to her husband, she took out the bones from the sack herself, held them in her palm and inspected them carefully, so she could remember each and every bone forever. This was part of him, part of the man she loved. She stored the bones in the pouch and handed the pouch to her husband.

“Wear it around your neck,” she said to him.

“Why?” Her husband asked.

“To remind me of Lord Stannis’ justice,” she repeated her husband’s words, but suspected she meant something quite different by them than what he had meant when he said those words.


End file.
